


Simpatico

by moon_crater



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Biting, Breathplay, Canon-Typical Problematic Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Edgeplay, Elevator Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fight Sex, Gunplay, Knifeplay, Rough Sex, Sexual Tension, Smut, bloodplay (mild)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 14:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7896349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_crater/pseuds/moon_crater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's wasteland in Benny's blood, under that sleek Vegas lacquer; a heart that beats for dust and danger - things the Courier has in spades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simpatico

**Author's Note:**

> For the kinkmeme. [The prompt](http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/5646.html?thread=14013198#t14013198), in brief: 
> 
> _[...] I kind of want to see something where the Courier is much more Wasteland, much less New Vegas. Like, she strolls into the Tops in blood-splattered armor, machete at her hip, reeking like sweat and nightstalker guts and Benny thinking shes super hot despite or because of it._
> 
> **Warnings** : The usual canon/character typical ableist language and such. Also, DUBCON. While the characters totally want to bone even though they know it's a bad idea, it's spontaneous, the sex is kinky, and there is no negotiation. Boundaries are not agreed upon beforehand, or really established at all, nobody asks permission for so much as a kiss, it's all quite dangerous, and _there are no safe words._ While I can say that both characters are only pushed as far as they want because I know what's in their heads, still: these are not good BDSM practices in non-fantasy contexts.
> 
> Basically, both characters would vocally consent to all the things that happen here _if they asked_ , but they don't. Don't try this at home.
> 
>  **Notes:** Aaah. A little break from posting WIPs: blatant smut. It does a writer good! Anyway. This is AU, but just so very barely, because...yeah, they don't make it to Benny's suite. Charlies are not shaken for the Ben-Man. I'm sorry. Sadface. :( Please accept my apology in the form of porn.

Shuffle.

Cut.

Flip.

Three of diamonds.

Benny tucks the card back in the deck all neat, then shifts his shoulders against the wall he leans on. He ruffles the cards in hands, fans them out, taps them back together again, just for the sake of having something to do with his fingers.

Shuffle.

Cut.

Flip.

Ten of clubs.

He sighs, puffs away on the cigarette dangling from his lips, another distraction to make him feel like he's doing something. The casino floor ain't dead, but it ain't exactly jumping, either. Been a lot of that goin' around lately, everybody behaving themselves. Always makes him antsy.

Benny doesn't know what to do with down time these days. When the Chairmen were new to the Strip, sure, back when empty bellies and pit fights were fresh in their minds, lounging meant luxury. Didn't mind it then. Now it's all boredom. Maybe he's working behind the scenes against House, and that means big things on the horizon, but for now, he's biding his time, and it's drivin' him _up the fuckin' wall_.

Shuffle.

Cut.

Flip.

Six of clubs.

The bouncers are all doin' their jobs; nobody's pulled a gun on a dealer or croupier in a month, and the last dame who tried to seduce her way into the cash cage is neck deep in a Radscorpion den somewhere outside the city. Probably nothing but bones by now.

Swank's makin' time with some little wide-eyed slip of a thing in a flowered dress, her hair all tucked up under a wide brimmed straw hat. Real fresh faced, wholesome. _Giggling_ with him, for fuck's sake, like she ain't never heard of the apocalypse.

Business as usual.

Shuffle.

Cut.

Flip.

Two of hearts.

Benny smirks, lifts the card in Swank's direction in a salute he won't see, not that he'd care since he's got his arm around the little slip's waist now, and she's still giggling. She'll giggle her way right out of that pretty little number before the night's through, if he knows Swank. Guy's got a soft spot a mile wide for the cute, innocent ones.

Not that little slip's innocent, Benny reflects wryly, shuffling the two back in the deck. Cute, maybe, but from this angle he can see the straight razor tucked into the ribbon spun around that hat.

With two fingers, he motions to a suit off in the corner, who jumps to attention like he oughtta. Benny brings him in real close so the gamblers can't hear and tilts his head toward his right hand man.

“You get a load Swank's new lady friend, Jackson?”

Jackson peers at her, all suspicious-like after the first appreciative pass over the seams in her stockings. Probably painted on. Ain't nobody got silk stockings in post-apocalyptia. “She packin'?”

“Nothin' hefty. Probably just for self defense. After all, a lady alone in New Vegas...we can be understanding.” Benny straightens the handkerchief in the other Chairman's pocket. “Be polite.”

“Sure, Benny. I'll be polite.”

“ _Real_ polite,” Benny says, punctuating the words by tapping one of the buttons on Jackson's shirt.

“Got it, boss.”

Jackson heads out to do his duty, and Benny goes back to watching the floor. He's got finesse, that one. Not as much as some, but enough. He won't make a scene. He's persuasive enough to get a little thing like her to give up her weapon without a ruckus, and that's what counts. He plays it right, Swank will still get to unwrap her later, no hard feelings about her straight razor.

Shuffle.

Cut.

Flip.

Eight of diamonds.

It ain't real smart, but...standing there up against the wall, filling his lungs with smoke for no other reason than breaking up the dullness, Benny kind of wishes it _wouldn't_ go smooth. He's tired of smooth. In his mind's eye, reality blurs and the details get fuzzy enough to fill 'em in differently.

Jackson taps the sweet little thing on the shoulder, and she turns. He says something to her, probably charming, and she gives him a smile that's all jagged wasteland teeth and bright, dewy eyes. Her fingers find the ribbon, lovingly fondling the slip of silver inside, and Jackson is nodding and grinning. Unsuspecting, the poor sap. The blade is in her hand before he can think anything's amiss, then it's in Jackson's neck, red blossoming on his collar.

She's _quick_ , this vision Benny's imagination has conjured, like a good tribal would be. Not the sorry excuses for 'em that roam the strip now, all soft and doughy, but the kind he used to be. Lean, agile, strong. Fast enough to bury her fist in Swank's face, probably knock out a few teeth, and snap his neck. Mean enough to take down a couple of guards with nothing but moxie and that little razor…

Benny blinks, shakes himself. The fantasy dissolves like a mirage, leaving bland reality in its place. She's handing her weapon over like a good little girl, smiling and shaking her head and almost certainly saying something like, _gee whiz, I just forgot it was even there!_ She looks like the type to say _gee whiz_ without irony.

Jackson nods at him, subtle just like he should, when he turns away, and Swank goes right back to putting the moves on her. If he ain't mistaken, they're pressed closer than they were before the interruption.

Benny slides the eight back in the deck.

Business as _fuckin_ ' usual.

Shuffle.

Cut.

Flip.

Queen of clubs.

There must be _somethin'_ to occupy him—or, to be more specific, to take his mind off his distinct _lack_ of troubles. Gotta be. He casts indifferent eyes around the casino floor, weighing every patron against whether they're worth his time. Most don't even crack the top twenty list of things he'd like to be doing.

There's the farmer's daughter makin' eyes at him from a roulette table, smiling to show off how she's still got all her teeth. She's glancing at him like she's never seen a decent lookin' guy in a pressed suit before, and if he reads that patched dress right, she probably hasn't. Gotta be a virgin to the strip—the way she gingerly bets one little chip at a time gives her away—and she doesn't have the markings of a tribal. Just a homesteader on a little vacation, and that's already a strike against her. Benny makes two to one odds she's about as interesting as a sack of straw, in bed or out of it.

Some cat in a snazzy suit—dark skin, good cheekbones—catches his eye and gives him a wink. While dames have always been his preferred poison, Benny thinks with an internal shrug, it's been awhile since he's swung the other way. Could make a nice change of pace. Not really in the mood for any macho posturing, though—the guys who tend to go for Benny try to one-up him on the masculinity scale, and that don't play. First sign of that shit, he'd throw him out on his ass. Still...it's a possibility.

On the other side of the floor, there's a middle-aged hourglass draped over a poker table, spilling out of her tight green dress. Cool gray hair, smoky eyes rimmed with what looks like petroleum jelly and lamp black. Promising. Maybe the most promising thing in the room.

She sees him watching her, smirks up at him from under those long sooty lashes and rolls a chip on the felt in a way he's prepared to find obscene. She's _definitely_ seen a fella in a suit before; Benny gets the impression she eats 'em for breakfast. When she smiles and he notices her teeth are all filed to points, he amends that thought to include _maybe literally_. Certainly not in the mood to be on a cannibal's menu, no matter how shapely she might be.

He should just give up and go upstairs. Fiddle with Yes Man's wires a little. Go over his plans for the ten thousandth time. Watch a holotape, maybe. A trader blew into town with half a dozen 'new' films he ain't seen yet, and a couple look sexy enough to keep his attention for an hour or two. Even if Yes Man does that _obnoxious_ thing where he picks up on the holotape player's signal and offers unsolicited, cheerful commentary through the wall. _“Gee, that Greta Garbo sure is great at dying! So convincing!”_

Benny's eyes drift back to the casino entrance, hands moving to shuffle his deck of cards again, but his fingers forget what they're doing. The deck explodes, showering him with paper, and his cigarette drops right out of his mouth. He's got just enough presence of mind to stomp on it before it can set the carpet on fire.

If he wanted excitement, he's got it in spades. A goddamn _ghost_ just walked through the door.

He scans the room, quick. Nobody saw him make a fool of himself with the fuckin' cards. Good. It'd be bad for his reputation. Benny kicks them behind him with one foot, where they flutter around a potted plant and don't look quite so obvious, then smooths his hair. With that done, he moves away from the wall, into the middle of the dais where he'll be between four different guards, careful to move slow. Playing it cool, straightening his jacket as he goes. Better look presentable.

Dead center on the dais, he leans up against one of the gold railings, with his back to the casino floor so he can compose himself and figure the odds. She'll never get in with any heavy duty weapons, even if she manages to sneak a hold-out past security. He's positioned himself in such a way that she'll have to go past a bunch of innocent bystanders _and_ a bunch of Chairmen before she can safely start shooting, if that's the kind of person she is. If she's more hands on, he's standing smack in the middle of a bunch of his boys. All of 'em great shots. She won't even get to draw a knife before they blow her head off.

And if she wants to _talk_ …well, he's still got the edge, even if it's not much of one. He knows she's coming. He can act like he doesn't, let her think she's got him twitchy, make her feel like she's the one with the upper hand. She'll get overconfident, like every loser who thinks they've got him beat does, and then...

Well, then he'll play it by ear, depending on what she's got to say.

He's got that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades that's never steered him wrong before, and he has a minute to hope he hasn't read her wrong. _Is_ she the kind of dame who'll care about the unsuspecting regular Joes between him and her, or will she just start shooting up the place? Does she even have the concept of _innocent bystanders_? There's plenty of tribes around that don't. If she's even tribal. She might be one of those Vaulties; their morals when it comes to Wastelanders are skewed at best.

Fingers tap him on the shoulder; gentle enough he could believe they belong to a friend, brisk enough to make him think that ain't what she'll be. Showtime. Benny arranges his face in a slack expression that will easily melt into fake surprise, and turns, slow, to take her in.

She's taller than he expected, almost as tall as him, something he wouldn't have guessed from seeing her on her knees. Broad in the shoulders, or maybe that's the leather duster padding her out, making her look more muscular. Solid through the torso, too; squareish. Thick. These are the particulars his brain picks out in a blink—her size, her strength, her center of gravity—the ones that matter to a tribal out in the desert, not a Chairman on the Strip.

A dingy sheriff's star pinned to one side of her chest winks in the dim casino lighting and for some reason _that_ little detail makes him sweat. She's either killed a lawman or befriended one—or, hell, maybe she _is_ one now; none of the options are great news. It takes a tough motherfucker to police a wasteland, and an even tougher one to impress 'em or take 'em down.

“What in the goddamn…?” He trails off, like he meant to say _hell_ or _world_ afterward. Benny sells that line maybe a little too well, eyebrows hitting too high on his forehead. So he's no great actor, so sue him.

“And I worried you wouldn't remember me.” It's a voice that's all gravel—not exactly like a ghoul, but somewhere in the neighborhood, close enough to share cocktails at five. His eyes drop to her throat, finding an ugly scar there—wide and braided and crooked. A slit throat? A rope burn? He can't decide from just a glance.

“Baby,” he coos, laying on six layers of charm like icing on a cake, “yours is not a face I would forget.”

Sounds insincere, but it's the truth. A guy doesn't forget his first cold blooded murder under the full moon. Benny's killed people before—shit, it's part of everyday living in a post-apocalypse; you're born, you kill, you die—but _execution_ is another matter. Doesn't exactly come naturally to him.

“Hn.” His eyes find the scar at her throat again. Definitely a rope. Jesus, she's been _hanged_ and survived it? Walking away from two in the head doesn't seem so impressive by comparison. “You say that to everybody you shoot?”

Benny pulls a cigarette from the pack inside his sport coat. Drops it between smirking lips. “Just you, baby.”

While he's still feeling around for a matchbook, her hand slips into the pocket of her duster. He tenses—not enough for it to show—but she comes out with a tarnished lighter instead of something more sinister. It flicks open right under his nose. For a second he imagines she might grab him by the head and stick his face in the open flame, but he tempts fate. Leans into it, lets it ignite the tip of his smoke. After he exhales, the lighter snaps closed. She offers it to him.

Their fingers brush during the exchange. A static shock jumps between them with an audible _pop;_ makes him want to flex his hand to shake it off. Instead, he turns the lighter over, thumb tracing the outline of a pin-up angel he's long ago committed to memory. “That how you found me?”

“No.”

He waits for her to elaborate. Puts his hands in his pockets, leans forward on the balls of his feet expectantly. She doesn't take the cue. “Plan to keep me in suspense?”

“You're a hard guy to miss.”

“Ain't that the truth.” Benny chuckles, makes sure it sounds more nervous than he feels—and he's plenty nervous.

She makes her finger into the shape of a gun, down at her side where the bodyguards won't see it. Points it right at his head and jerks it back like she's pulled the trigger. “I never miss.”

The chuckle dries up about the same time his mouth does. Benny swallows what feels like a chunk of iron. “We're having a good time here, baby. Nice and smooth and easy. Don't let's ruin it with tacky threats of violence we can't carry out.”

Her lips curl and his heart stutters in his chest. Good old fight or flight's finally putting in an appearance. How like them to show up fashionably late. “Think you left your chances at _nice and smooth and easy_ behind awhile ago, friend.”

“Mean and rough and hard still open, then?” Benny takes in another lungful of smoke and lets it bubble out of his mouth as he continues, “I promise, girlie, any wicked little inklings you've got about vengeance will be tougher on you than they will be on me.”

“What was that about promises we can't keep?”

She reaches out and plucks the cigarette right out of his mouth, and he lets out a “Hey!” before he can stop himself. She looks at him straight on, where another broad might have slanted her eyes up at him, playing coy. Her cold coffee eyes don't quite match and he tucks that nugget of information away for a rainy day. Glass eyes are rare out here, but she's got one. Her depth perception must be shit.

“Don't act like you were going to finish it.” She takes a drag, not much of one, and runs her tongue over her teeth in irritation, maybe disgust, at the taste. “Filtered.” She stares at it as it smolders between her fingers, looking like she's contemplating flicking it at him, or maybe jamming it in his eye. “You're a lot softer than what I pictured.”

“Ooh, good try, baby, but I won't take a swing so you can cry self defense.” He takes out another cigarette and lights it. “Want to insult my mother next?”

“You've got a mother?”

“Cute!” Benny points at her with the two fingers holding his smoke. “Real cute! You got something to do besides audition for house insult comic? 'Cause we ain't hiring anyone of your meager talent.”

“You couldn't afford me anyhow.” She takes one last drag and then puts the cigarette out _on her fuckin' palm_. “Just thought I'd drop in, say hi to an old friend. Let him know I've been thinking about him.”

“Drawn and quartered, I'll bet,” he answers thickly.

“No.” At least she's got the decency to put the cigarette butt in her pocket instead of just chucking it someplace. “You're not the first person to try to kill me. You won't be the last.”

“That where you got such a pretty necklace?” Benny cuts his pinky across his own throat to mirror her scar.

She pulls close, but slow so he doesn't startle, and lets a finger trace the edge of his tie. “If you like it,” she toys with the slip of fabric, sliding it between her fingers, then gives it a quick little jerk that makes him jump, “I know where you can pick one up cheap.”

Behind him there's the flesh-and-metal sound of guns being drawn. Good to know the boys are on their toes—and, he glances around—being discreet about it. Not spooking the gamblers. Benny raises a hand to keep his bodyguards from blasting her right out of her socks.

“When you shot me,” she murmurs, pinning him in place with those dark, uneven eyes, “you ran off so fast I didn't catch your name.”

“ _R_ _ude_ of me.” His fingers close over hers and peel them off his tie, one by one. Before he can finish, her other hand comes down on his, a hard grip on his wrist that comes up just short of being painful. From the position of her fingertips, he can tell she knows what pressure points she'd need to work to drop him to his knees, but she holds off. Interesting. A little scary, but definitely... _interesting._

“You want to make up for those bad manners and make with the introductions?”

“I make it a point to never be on a first name basis with people who want to kill me, baby.” Benny's free hand finds her wrist and gives it a crushing squeeze. She doesn't wince, but the corners of her eyes tighten and her lips turn up for a split second to greet his bone popping grip. “Personal policy. Keeps things from getting messy.”

“Little late for that.” Her hold loosens. Beneath his hand, she twists enough to glide the pads of her fingers, her nails, along the skin on the inside of his wrist. The sudden contrast of touch—rough pressure to gentle stroke—makes the hair on his arms stand on end under his shirt. “I'm Maggie.”

“Pretty name.” It kind of suits her, even though she's anything _but_ pretty. Tough as molerat jerky, dangerous as a pocket full of razor blades, but not _pretty_.

She moves in closer, and he gets a whiff of her. Sweat and wood smoke, dusty leather, the tang of radscorpion venom. It's not unpleasant, but it sure as hell ain't what civilization smells like.

“This is the part where you introduce yourself, stranger.”

“You telling me you made it all the way down here, and you never even found out who you were looking for?”

“Okay, Benny.” She worms out of his grasp and raises her hands in mock surrender. “You got me.”

He catches a flash of dull metal and red peeking out of her rolled up sleeve—the diamond shaped pommel of a throwing knife. Fast as a viper, Benny seizes her around the wrists, pulling the one attached to the knife up against his chest and forcing the spare down against her side to keep her from going for it. Maybe he's gonna have to have a talk with Jackson after all, because she shouldn't have gotten that through. What else is she hiding under that filthy duster?

She laughs softly with that rusty gate voice and presses up against him. They must look real cozy like this, posed like a couple of dancers. “Like I said. Got me. Now, what'll you do with me?”

There's a record scratch between his ears, like the ones on the radio sometimes. Benny's eyes flick from the top of her head to her boots and bounce back up to a face that's dirty, sweaty, scarred and—if he's being honest—pretty un-fucking-remarkable even without those impairments. Wisps of her dark hair's loose, ratty under a strip of cloth that wants to think it's a bandana, and her clothes—she looks like she's come in straight from a dust storm, and he can see exactly where that radscorp stink is coming from. She must have blown a few away with a shotgun at point-blank range.

“You makin' a pass at me, sister?” Shit, he sounds like he's up for it. He makes sure to firm up his tone when he adds, “'Cause I'm out of your league.”

She gives him the same kind of once-over. She glances at the wingtips, freshly shined by one of the Chairmen's junior members—wrinkles her nose at his jacket—actually _rolls her eye_ when she looks at his hair, which he knows is perfect, not one strand out of place. Her gaze rests on his face, and whatever she sees there, it ain't scars and sweat and filth. Scars he's got, but only where they don't show. He wonders what she'd think if he tore off his clothes and showed her where a nightstalker almost took his leg off back in the day.

“I know you're second rate, but I'm willing to make an exception,” she says in a tone that usually means, _I'll do you this one favor, but you're gonna owe me one._

“Second ra—” He glowers at her. “I'm second rate? _I'm_ second rate?” He shouldn't get worked up about it, but where does _she_ get off coming into _his_ casino acting like he's anything less than the coolest of the cool?

“I got standards.” She pushes back against his grip on her wrist—he's bent her hand back far enough it must be hurting her some, but she doesn't act like she's in pain. She gives him a measuring look and twists in his grip, and actually smiles when she can't quite break free.

“But for me you'll make an exception,” he says flatly.

“Sure.” A charged silence settles between them. After a moment of staring him down, she breaks it in a breathy voice. “You're just my type.”

“ _Executioner_ does it for you?” He squints at her—suspicious, annoyed and _worst of all_ interested despite every reasonable bone in his body screaming to kill her and be done with it. “Oh, I beg your pardon, baby, _second rate_ executioner.”

“Can't rank any higher if the condemned is still breathing, honey.”

She closes the rest of the already miniscule distance between them, tense and firm against his body. Two points of that tin star dig into his coat hard enough he can feel them through the fabric. More distracting, through the leather of her duster, he can feel a hint of her breasts. He's got her in a death grip, and he _knows she's armed_ , and her tits are up against him, and she's probably the deadliest thing he's had this close since his tribal days, and what does his stupid brain do? Goes _offline_.

“You think it's wrong to want a guy who'd shoot me in the head?”

Since “ _I'll fucking say!”_ is not what he should fucking say, he goes for something with more subtlety. “Did those bullets knock a screw loose? Five or six, maybe? Or have you always had a head full of bad hardware?”

“Kind of thick, aren't you?” she says with just enough emphasis for it to sound filthy. She leans her head forward to whisper in his ear, and he feels her left hand trying to go for his pants pocket. She's got him distracted, but not so much that he can't put a stop to that. “I'm saying I _dig_ you. You really gonna say no?”

Uh, _yeah_ , he is. Because he'd have to be some kind of idiot to think she's on the level. Even if he kind of wants to believe otherwise.

“See, now, baby, you say 'dig', and I hear 'shovel.'” And a fresh grave somewhere in the desert with his name on it. If he's lucky, he won't still be breathing when she puts him in it. No, he ain't gonna give her the chance.

Her hand is still going, but not for his pocket. He stops her again, but it takes a little longer this time. Her hand and his both end up trapped between their bodies, and he feels her breath on his cheek, maybe a silent chuckle or a huff of frustration, he can't be sure.

“I'm a courier, remember? Don't you want me to handle your package?”

“What, here?” That'd give the gamblers a hell of a show.

“Why not? Looks like nobody's using the craps table.” She's already edging him toward it. “Come on, Benny. They say hard ten is a woman's best friend.”

They don't use the craps table because nobody's managed to figure out the rules of the game. All of a sudden, it seems a lot more interesting. He should look into that.

“Baby, this is all kinds of wrong.” And, goddamn, he ain't fighting too hard against it. Maybe he's had a little too much _right_ lately. A little too much _safe_. He glances back at his four bodyguards, who are getting plenty confused by now, but they're still doing what he pays them for.

He never would have had protection like this in the old days, out in the desert. They used to settle their scores one on one, and if something came up the chief couldn't handle, then too fuckin' bad, he wasn't fit to lead.

“Take a break, boys,” he says. They all hesitate, which is good—they're where they are not just because they're some of the best shots the Family has to offer, but also because they're bright enough but not too ambitious, and most of all, loyal.

“You sure, Benny?” one of them asks. When Benny just _looks_ at him, they all slouch off, but not too far.

The broad, Maggie, has him backed up against the craps table already. One good shove and he'll be flat on his back across it. And ain't that a pretty picture? He's let her maneuver him so far, but now he holds her off.

“Cool it, baby. I won't say I'm not interested, but there's a time and a place, you follow?”

“You don't want to do it with an audience?” She takes a step back, slips her wrists out of his grasp. He drops his hands to lean against the table, figuring he can kick her feet out from under her if she tries to go for a weapon, but she doesn't. Instead she plucks at his tie again, frowning at it like she's never seen one before. Her rough skin catches on the silk threads as she runs her thumb across it. “So _soft_ , Jesus.” She shrugs and gives it a tug like he's a pet. “If you want privacy...I guess I wouldn't mind.”

Yeah, he'll just bet she wouldn't. Easier to stick that knife in him that way. “I got a funny feeling somebody's bein' hustled, baby. And I got a pretty good idea it ain't you.”

That doesn't seem to mean much to her, or maybe she just doesn't care what he has to say. “But you're curious enough to find out for sure, aren't you?”

She stares at him until he starts to get flustered and jerks his head toward the elevator. This one goes to the Presidential, not to his suite, but what the hell, it's closer.

“This is all kinds of wrong,” he says again, “but I'm in for a dozen.”

She shrugs him off when he tries to guide her with his hand at the small of her back. Offended, almost, that he'd dare and _try_ to lead her even when she don't know the way. That tells him just about everything he needs to know about this dame—real opinionated, this one, and pushier than a stiff wind. Jeez, he thinks, as they step into the elevator. He can really pick 'em, can't he?

He half expects her to snuggle up next to him, cling to him, coo sweet nothings in his ear, maybe, the way other dames tend to when they're lucky enough to come upstairs. She doesn't. Of course she doesn't. But as the elevator lurches into motion, she doesn't go for her knife either, and that's what's really surprising. They've got privacy for the next few minutes while the geriatric elevator shambles up a few floors, and they're in a cramped space. If their positions were reversed, and he wanted to kill her as much as she must want to kill him, he'd have made a move the second the doors shrieked closed.

He keeps an eye on her hands as they rattle their way up, mapping out all the ways she _could_ attack and all the ways he could stop her. She's still got that throwing knife. Not enough room to actually throw it, but they work just as well for stabbing. He'd have to be quick enough to get her arms pinned before she could get it in her hand.

She watches him like she knows what he's thinking. Not just that he doesn't trust her, she'd have to be stupid not to realize that. But he can tell she's reading him deeper than he'd expect somebody like her to bother. Something about that little dimple under the scar on her cheek when she smirks tells him so.

The dame leans up against the brass railing on one wall, casual as you please, and looks at him. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Benny's got no idea what a penny is, but he ain't gonna let on that she knows anything he doesn't. He's a good bluff, good enough to keep his wits and survive House. “How 'bout two for yours.”

“Mine don't come so cheap.”

So, it's a unit of currency. Either pre-war, or regional. He files that away.

“But you think _I'm_ cheap.”

“Well,” her gaze rolls along the slope of his shoulders, the cut of his coat, “look at you.”

That gets his dander up. Nobody talks to him that way, in his town, in his casino, in _his elevator_. It sets his blood bubbling, but there's more to it than just anger, and that just makes him feel crankier. She's sizing him up, callin' him a phony, peggin' that slick veneer of Vegas for just what it is; and it's exactly what he'd have done, back in the day. It's part of why he _still_ chafes under House's rules. The prickling of tribal nerves at _civilization_ , at being _tamed_ , at getting _soft_. For all that he loves the luxury of Vegas, he's tribal underneath. But he's still got his pride.

“If you're tryin' to get on my good side, baby, you're doin' it wrong.”

“And what'd be the right way?”

What indeed.

“You could start by getting rid of _that_ thing,” he says, with a gesture at her coat. He does want to see what she's keeping underneath it, but he lets his voice carry just enough contempt for the dirt and the lousy fit of the thing. It's got no class.

“Hn.” She shrugs, indifferent, and her fingers start working at the buttons, too quick to make it a striptease, but not quick enough to seem like she's in any real hurry. By the time they're two floors down from the Presidential, the duster is dangling from her hand, and he's got an eyeful of what's underneath.

A formerly-white tank top, spattered with blood, some of it fresh. Some of it _hers_ , he notes, since there's a ratty slice in one side of the thing, with a scab peeking out from beneath. Her arms are solid, muscular, and peppered with scars. He can pick out what made most of 'em at a glance 'cause he's seen their like before. The rippled streak of a bullet graze that healed slow; the clean, silver line of a switchblade's cut; the ragged moon-shaped divot left behind by digging out a Cazador stinger. Her skin is marked by the Mojave, just like his, just like every tribal's would be; he knows her scars because he's got some like 'em himself. Something strange and intimate about that, even though it only takes a single heartbeat to catalog them in his mind.

She flings the duster in his face. For a second, he's blinded, trying to claw the thing off him, unable to find an edge. He hears her hit the emergency stop button, and as the elevator screeches to a halt, she knocks him back against the wall. Her hands find his shoulders and _slam_ him into it with enough force to knock the air out of him, and she compounds his breathlessness by crushing her mouth to his before he's got a chance to get his bearings.

There's nothing gentle about her kiss, nothing polished or refined; she isn't putting on her best compliant little lady mask and letting him take the lead because he's a big time city slicker. She's no naive country girl in town for some innocent fun and it's _such_ a thrill to be with a guy like him. Her kiss is harsh and punishing, with teeth and bruising strength, and the taste of cactus water instead of centuries old top shelf booze.

He tries to get the upper hand, but there ain't a whole lot he can do. The duster is off his face but trapped between their bodies, and she whips the end of it around him to pin his left arm against his side. Then she lets gravity take over, and he hits first the corner of the elevator, then the floor, with her still firmly on top.

(His brain calculates six ways he can break her grip on the way down, but he only goes as far as to drag at her hair and kick a little.)

She comes up for air, with her hands fisted tight around his lapels. He's left addled, staring with wide, wild eyes, and breathing hard. Heart jumping so fast inside him that he wouldn't be surprised if it'd bust out of his chest and bounce around the room. His fingers have found their way to the floor, clutching at the carpet and leather duster beneath them like he's scared he'll go flying off the face of the planet, but he's not complaining. Even if he had the brain power for it.

Suddenly there's a sharp pinprick at side of his throat. The throwing knife, cool and smooth, presses up against his jugular—must've whipped it out of the sleeve when she threw the duster—and the fog clears. Life threatening danger does that to a man with survival in his blood. In a fraction of a second, he assesses the situation.

Before she can stick him with it good and proper, he grabs her by the hair and pulls her down. Gets a real firm grip on her, none of that soft bedroom shit, and drags her mouth back to his. The bandana comes loose over his hand, sliding down his wrist like a bracelet, as he forces her mouth open with probing tongue and nipping teeth.

Now it's her turn to be surprised by cold steel. She gasps into his mouth when he presses Maria up under her chin, having used the distraction to fish her out of his pocket. It's enough to set his head spinning that he's caught her by surprise. His blood pounds in his ears, every nerve under his skin alive and tingling; lust and fear and anger are a hell of a drug when combined.

Life in the Mojave is this feeling, but all the time. Reaching a human limit and throwing some terror and readiness to fight on top. You sleep in a cave because you're bone tired, you might wake up under a pile of skittering scorpions. Take a piss in the middle of the night because you can't wait 'til morning, maybe fall off a cliff. Fuck under the stars, risk a Deathclaw catching the scent. Desert living ain't safe, it ain't soft and comfortable and civilized, but it sure as shit ain't boring, either. Now that he's got an lapful of it personified, he realizes... _this_ is what he's been missing.

He ain't felt like this in _years_. He's alone, and vulnerable, and under threat with nobody to save him but himself; but so is she, and that tips the scales to make them even somehow. Even so, they're dancing on the edge of a razor. One wrong move, they kill each other, unless they find something else to occupy themselves. The uncertainty, that hanging in the balance between killing and fucking, is doing strange things to his composure. It's coming unraveled at the point of her knife, and with her straddling him, scorching hot and solid, he's hard pressed to remember why it shouldn't.

“You better use that thing, if you're gonna,” he says, and the movement of his throat makes the knife dig in deeper. He taps her under the chin with the gun in an unspoken threat.

Benny feels her swallow against his knuckles. “Shoot me, my body falls on the knife. You'll bleed out before you can say 'boo.'”

“Sure, honey baby, and you stab me, I'll blow that ugly mug off before I bleed out.” He wets his bottom lip. “So, we got us a stalemate.”

“Stalemate,” she echoes. The knife traces a line down the side of his throat, just barely opening the top layer of skin. Sharp, and the hurt feels like dragging his finger along a piece of wire. But he manages to keep from squeezing the trigger. “What do you figure, five minutes before your boys come along to pull you out of this? Ten?”

More likely they don't notice for an hour. He told 'em to back off, after all, and they got no reason to come to the Presidential unless they need him for something. But she doesn't need to know that. “A lot can go wrong in ten minutes.”

The blade eases, and its angle changes, until the pressure of the steel is nothing but a ghost, gentle as a breath. It glides across his skin, over his collar bone, down past the first open button of his shirt. Then lower. The knife edge pops the threads of the second button. The third. He should shoot her, but he doesn't. Still, he keeps the gun's muzzle digging into her chin. She stops, centering the tip of the knife in the middle of his chest.

“Thinkin' of putting it in my heart?” he asks coolly, like they ain't on the verge of killing each other. Like his stomach ain't turning itself in knots and the blood ain't leaving his brain for better real estate to the south. “Better hope you're strong enough to clear the bone.”

“I don't have to hope.” Her voice is too rough to sound cold the way his can, but it's low and strong just the same. “Besides...” She drags it to the side and up a little, and pauses with the point pressing down just between his ribs, where it'll slide in nice and easy. “The heart is here.”

Yeah, it is. His picks up the pace under the knife point, thudding dull and heavy against his ribs. But she makes no move to pierce it, for all her talk. Benny's free hand inches toward her knee across the floor of the elevator, slides up and over it, then skims along the denim over her thick, muscular thigh. Something twitches in her face, and her functional pupil dilates at the touch; the blade in her hand pricks his skin but doesn't cut. If she isn't going to stab him, he's going to press his luck. It's in his nature.

Boldly, he grips the edge of her tank, right below the hole in the side, and rips it with a sharp yank. The fabric tears upward, cutting a jagged, diagonal line of bare skin across her body. When he lets go, the tattered cloth dangles unevenly from her frame; one breast completely covered, the underside of the other exposed. Benny trades the hand around Maria for the other in a fluid transition that makes her breath hitch. His palm smooths along her bare side, up over her ribs until he finds the same spot on her where her knife jabs him.

“What do you know about that,” he murmurs, dipping his fingertips into the hollow between the bones, “it is.”

He flattens his palm against her, letting it slip under her breast, but doesn't take it in hand. His thumb settles on her sternum and circles once, twice, three times, and the outline of her nipple becomes more pronounced through what's left of the tank. “Thanks for the anatomy lesson, baby.”

“Anything else...” The knife trails over his skin, threatening to puncture, never doing more than tickling. His skin involuntarily spasms under the touch. “...I can teach you?”

“If you got any pointers for keeping a corpse in the ground, baby, I'm listening.” A thin sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead, like a cool mist. “Think I need to work on my technique.”

He anticipates a dry-twigs chuckle, something that flirts and teases, but she ain't got a coy bone in her body.

Maggie lifts her chin, and thank fuckin' god for steady hands because his finger twitches on the trigger, as her head rolls to one side. Maria grazes the underside of her jaw, along the curve of her cheek, and comes to rest at the side of her skull. Beneath, there's a patchwork scar, a dip where bone's been removed and set back in wrong.

“You got me here,” she says, leaning into the barrel like it's a lover's caress instead of a loaded gun. His throat is dry; he swallows harshly. “You should have gotten me...” Slow, _so slow_ , she shifts against him again. He can _hear_ the metal against her skin, the barest _click_ of two hundred year old steel parts shifting, as her lips touch the muzzle. “Here.”

Those mismatched eyes stay riveted to his, daring him to look away. But he can't help himself; his eyes dart down to see her mouth open. She accepts Maria on her tongue, and closes her lips around the first half inch of barrel.

_Fuck._

It doesn't take a genius to figure out the symbolism. Which is handy, 'cause he ain't got any brain power to spare. His head's buzzing like it's full of Cazadores. The rest of him is a live wire.

“Subtle,” he manages, in a voice that hardly cracks at all. The thumb on her sternum slips from under her tank and drags across the fabric over her taut nipple. The extra layer, the stir of ribbed cotton under his hand, adds friction that makes her gasp. Her lips withdraw from the gun when she takes that gulp of air, but her eyes don't leave his.

“Fresh,” she says, and he only works out the meaning because he's heard pin-up girls say that in the movies when they get pinched. Right before they slap the guy who did the pinching, and then fall head over heels in love with the crumb. Not that he thinks that's what'll happen here, but he ain't rulin' it out just because it's not rational. He thought it was rational that she'd stay in the ground where he buried her; look where that miscalculation's gotten him.

“You complainin', pussycat?” Feeling reckless, 'cause it's hard to be timid with somebody who'll pin him between her thighs and suck on a deadly weapon, Benny rolls her nipple between his thumb and forefinger through her clothes. At first he's slow, gentle, but when her eye darkens, he gives it a squeeze. A slight tug that makes her whole body twitch, then settle like he didn't make her jump. “'Cause I don't _hear_ you complainin'.”

He spreads his fingers, so his thumb slides beneath the little bud and his finger slips up above it, then reverses the action. Back and forth, slow and casual, like he's ruffling his poker chips at the table while the dealer shuffles, he drags the nipple in and out of his grip. He's been with a dame or two who could get off just from bein' played with like this. Is she one of 'em? Will she come screaming from getting handled like he's milking the venom from a goddamn radscorpion tail? Benny gives her a lazy smile and a savage pinch, then goes back to the easy stroke like nothing happened.

Still watching him, but looking more pink in the cheeks, she presses a soft-mouthed kiss to Maria's muzzle...and her knife stings him. Just a poke, hardly enough to break the skin, but he sucks in a breath on a curse. It's only through muscle memory and a lifetime of tightly harnessed control that he avoids accidentally blasting a new hole in her head.

“Baby,” he breathes, unsure if he's imagining the faint trickle of blood on his skin, “you can't seem to decide if you want to kill me or kiss me.”

“There a reason it can't be both?”

If he's honest? Not that he can name. That doesn't mean there isn't one, but he's not exactly thinkin' straight.

“Maybe pick one or the other.” He lifts the edge of her tattered top and draws it up over the slope of one breast, then the other. They ain't the perkiest pair he's ever seen, but they're fat, and round, and heavy in his hand when he finally wraps his fingers around one. “I'm a busy man, baby.”

He's the width of a single knuckle away from blowing her brains out, and that'd be the smart thing to do, but his libido doesn't give a shit. Okay, that's a lie. It gives a shit, but not in any direction that makes sense. She's an ugly, unapologetic piece of wasteland bearing down on him. He's got a gun to her head and he's ready to use it.

And he's never wanted to fuck somebody so bad in his _life_. For all that he accused her of having a screw loose for puttin' the moves on him, he must have one rattling around in his skull to match.

“You in a hurry to die or something?”

“Or somethin',” he says, lifting his hips beneath her to illustrate.

She considers, really takes her time with it. The hand that isn't busy with the knife finds his tie, threads it through her fingers, lets it fall. Threads it again, lets it fall again. It lands in a soft puddle of silk in the middle of his bare chest. The knife still sticks in his side, but not in the same place where she already jabbed him, and he's thankful for that much.

“Tick tock, honey baby—”

Without warning, she snatches his tie, jerks it taut and hauls him up to smash their mouths together all over again. The tension stretches and snaps in the air between them. It _breaks_ over him, a wave that knocks him for a loop.

His hand, the one holding Maria, falls away to the floor. Heat crackles across his skin, settling low in his gut like a fire pit, and he swears he can feel the desert. Blistering sand under him, cutting wind and cactus flowers in bloom; it all comes back. Hunger and sleeping under the stars and fighting for every minute of life in a world that's stingy with 'em. Her hair snarls around his fingers, and it's rough and wild. His hand drifts down, squeezes her breast hard enough to bruise, pinching the nipple and twisting it between his fingertips. Her teeth sink into his lip.

He tastes blood, sharp and coppery. His thoughts blur, every clever strategy he's ever had a distant mirage on the horizon, and he's nothing but an animal with a feral bitch in heat.

Somehow, he gets her under him, in a tangle of struggling limbs and scraping nails and biting teeth. The knife clatters. Fabric tears. Buttons scatter. The gun is still in his hand, pressed against the floor as he pins her under his weight. Still their mouths don't part. This kiss is raw and sloppy and _hot_. She's going to burn him to a cinder from the inside out.

He slides his thigh between hers, and presses it up against her; his free hand follows, bearing down on her, stroking against the thick denim seam. His touch gets a little milder when he peels open her fly and slides his fingers inside the fabric, but she grinds against his hand, groans into his mouth, and soon he's stroking her without a thought spared for gentleness.

Benny pulls back to get his breath and only remembers there are walls when he catches sight of them. He remembers to thumb Maria's safety back on, barely.

But her hand finds his, calloused fingertips tracing a pattern over his knuckles and she whispers, “Leave it off.”

He complies. Even though it's fucking dicey at best and fucking _insane_ at worst. But if she's crazy, so is he, and neither of 'em seem to care too much.

And then she's got him by the tie once more, dragging him back into a place he left behind years ago. His mouth finds her throat, chasing over the countless scars scattered like constellations across her skin, and he bites her shoulder to make a new one. Marking her, claiming her, as he sinks into her body. They haven't even bothered to strip; they're just making do with bits and pieces of bare skin, and fuck, that makes it better. Dirtier. More urgent.

She twists her fingers in his hair, rough enough to take some out, and he _growls_ against her in a voice he hardly recognizes as his own.

Benny tries to set the pace but she fights him, strains against him, pushes him onto his back. All this without disconnecting their bodies where they're joined. His back hits the floor and she snags his tie like he's a dog on a leash, and goddamn, he doesn't mind, even when she starts to take up the slack as she grinds against him. Her free hand reaches out above his head and grips the brass railing on the wall, bringing her bared breast tantalizingly close. Benny bends in a way that don't feel healthy just so he can clamp his mouth on it. His tongue works a tight circle around the nipple, once, twice, then he sucks.

She _cries out_ , and her faulty voice breaks in a way that just about finishes him. But it ain't until she lets go of the railing, groping for his hand—and Maria in it—tugging at his sleeve, that he starts to lose it. He takes the hint. Drags the gun to the apex of her thighs, careful to keep his finger off the trigger, and presses a smooth part of the steel _hard_ against her clit.

Benny feels the first shudder around him, and she _shouts_ _._ A wordless, sharp bark of sound as she throws her head back. The tie around his throat goes so tight he can't quite get a full breath, and he dangles on the edge of gasping for air while she rides out her orgasm. Her tits bounce as she writhes on his cock. A red flush suffuses her face, her chest. But it's the sight of her knuckles, white around that strip of silk that almost-chokes him, that sets him off like a stick of dynamite. He drops Maria and grabs her hips with bruising force as he comes.

* * *

It's minutes before he floats back down to earth. Long, lazy minutes. It's a real good thing they've decided not to kill each other. No way could he work up the energy to be upset about it if she tried.

Maggie's collapsed against his chest, just this side of conscious. Benny's hands have found the small of her back and rest there, on either side. The pads of his fingers absently draw figure eights while he comes back to himself. It's almost tender.

One of his hands traces the line of her spine, over her shoulder and all the way up to the side of her neck. He mutters into her hair, “You are out of your tree, kid. Real screwball.”

She jerks against him, but he can't tell if he woke her, or if it's a silent laugh. “So they tell me.”

His thumb slides over the braided scar, first one way, then the other. “Why'd they hang you?”

“Either I was a Brahmin rustler,” she says, twisting to look at him with her good eye glossy and tired, “or a black widow. Killed every man I ever slept with.”

He can't tell if she's kidding, and some of the languid ease dissipates. His heart starts to thump a little. That makes sense, at least. The way the rest of his body responds to this news is a hell of a lot less sensible. “You gonna tell me which was the truth?”

She smiles against his chest, like she's got a secret. Like she's enjoying the play of lust and worry on his face. It shouldn't turn him on even a little bit. And yet...

“You'll have to live with the uncertainty.”

**Author's Note:**

> _Maggie is very loosely inspired by two different historical figures, both women who were hanged but survived the ordeal: Half-Hangit Maggie and Half-Hanged Mary. The more you knoooow. *rainbow confetti*_


End file.
